


Geronimo

by aparticularbandit



Series: Geronimo: The Extended Edition [1]
Category: Deputy (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M, REWRITE BECAUSE EPISODE FOUR ADDED VALERIA SO GOT TO DO SOME NEW STUFF YAY, and the other one will get bits and pieces that don't fit or edit or whatnot, like bonus features!, or a special edition!, or etc!, so this is the one that'll get new chapter updates, this is the new fic for this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:54:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit
Summary: Asking your doctor out after they get finished stitching you up isn't exactly good manners, but ain't no one ever called Deputy Bill Hollister proper.
Relationships: Bill Hollister/Paula Reyes
Series: Geronimo: The Extended Edition [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1611736
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> NOW WITH ALMOST 500 NEW WORDS.
> 
> mostly at the beginning because valeria yo.
> 
> but there's an additional bit in hollister's dialogue, too, so oh well.
> 
> chapter two should be coming soon.

Anger ripped its way from the center of his chest to his clenched fists as Hollister strode into the house. He’d never been one for letting men beat up on a woman, less so when the woman in question was someone he cared about. Could’ve cared less for the piece of shit brother of hers – that son of a bitch deserved everything he got – but someone goes in to help get him out shouldn’t be dealing with the same.

He went in guns blazing. That would be the phrase, anyway, even though it was fists swinging and slamming into noses with the force to break them and not _actually_ guns, you know, blazing. The thing was, when there are more people ganging up on you than there was you going against them, you couldn’t dodge everything. Hollister knew that. He might’ve thought Valeria’s brother would’ve stepped into help them instead of running out the backdoor, but that belief was shattered mighty quick. Fucking snake.

Maybe he would’ve dodged better if he hadn’t been distracted. But there was a slash across his arm and trying to move back from that one he felt another knife stabbing into his stomach. Yeah, okay, shit, not good.

But anger could be an intimidating fire and the pain only lasted a few seconds before he could push it out of his mind, just like the fire on his arm and the knuckles he knew he was bruising. Most of them scampered before he could do anything more – couldn’t hang around a stabbed deputy unless you _wanted_ to get thrown in jail for it, never knew if he’d called for back-up or not (he had, he most definitely had, something like _shots fired_ would’ve been a lie, but right now he was _really_ wishing he wasn’t) – but by the time anyone arrived, he’d forgotten he’d been stabbed at all, it hurt so little.

Until he was bending Luciano’s hands into his one size fits all handcuffs, and then the searing pain tore into his side and reminded him that, no, he wasn’t coming away unscathed.

He lifted one hand to touch the sharp searing slash in his side and grunted. Not too much blood loss. Didn’t feel woozy. Just a lot of pain.

There was probably enough time to get this ass back to the station before he got reacquainted with the local hospital.

_Probably._

One step and a bit of a stumble and Valeria was dragging him to his car, speaking to him in a language he still couldn’t quite understand because he hadn’t bothered to learn it, and driving him off while the rest of his team cleaned up after his ~~mistake~~.

_Or not._

Hollister kept his head held high as much as he could as he strode into the hospital with one hand pressed against his side. Well. Not _into the hospital_. They’d taken one look at his stab wound in the emergency room and called him back before he’d had the chance to sit down. Not his first choice; there were plenty of others probably needed to be seen before he did, since he’d made it this long without someone (and he _did_ understand the idea of putting pressure on a wound to stop the bleeding, like he’d done with the slash in his arm, not that it was particularly helping with the gash in his side), but may have been they just wanted him bleeding in a room in the back instead of in one of those even less comfortable seats in the big waiting room.

Smart move.

Valeria hadn’t come in with him. Couldn’t. Would’ve blown her cover. About as much as him barreling into that run-down house and knocking some heads together might have. He’d called for back-up. Should be fine.

He’d have to lay off her case for a while.

Hollister closed his eyes as time ticked on – in a hospital sometimes felt like that was all you could hear, just that ticking in the silence that could drive a grown man mad, but just outside the emergency room, it was a different story – there was the pounding of shoes as someone rushed down the hall, the squeak of the wheels on one of their gurneys as it was torn past his room (glad he wasn’t on one of those; it’d be a bit soon for his liking, but in his line of work he’d probably end up on one eventually anyway), then that little click of the latch as the door to his room finally opened – best wait until the doc said his name before opening his eyes. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready for him yet.

“Bill Hollister?”

_She, not he._

The door clicked shut as he opened his eyes.

Not an angel. He was certain she was not an angel if only because his mama’d taught him growing up that he wouldn’t ever see any angels ‘cept when he died and he’d always been the sort to believe her. Hadn’t been given any reason not to. Thought this woman might’ve been the closest to one he’d ever seen, though, and he pressed a little harder on the wound in his stomach just to feel the pain of it. Couldn’t be dead if he was still feeling pain, so she couldn’t be an angel.

Looked like what he’d imagine one would look like, though. Sounded like one, too.

“Bill Hollister?” she repeated, glancing up from his charts, eyes widening as they met his, and she nodded once as an encouragement, just that small tilt of a thing.

He realized he hadn’t said anything yet and cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, that’s me.”

“Paula Reyes,” the doctor said. “I’ll be the intern taking care of you this evening.”

 _Intern, not doctor._ Huh. Either she was real smart or they thought he needed just about as much help as _he_ thought he needed, which was close to none, despite the still bleeding gash in his stomach. Probably both. Woman like that must be pretty smart. He couldn’t imagine _any_ doctor – intern or otherwise – not being smart.

Reyes glanced over him – all cuts and blood and dirt and grease and he wished he looked a little more cleaned up but then he wouldn’t need to be here meeting her, would he? – before taking a stool over next to him and sitting down on it. “Shirt back off.” She seemed to focus on his roughed up badge instead of his face as he unbuttoned his shirt again, but as soon as it was gone, she was prodding at the cut in his side with deft little fingers.

He hissed in pain. “You gotta press on it like that?”

“Yes.” Reyes didn’t look up. She sighed and scooted back, removing her gloves with a snap. “You’re going to need stitches. I’ll be right back.”

Hollister wanted to stop her and ask about the slash in his arm, but he guessed she’d already made her decisions on that without having to press on it the way she had the gash in his stomach. Made sense to him. Arms get slashed and bled a lot, but unless it was real bad it wasn’t real bad. Stuff on your stomach could be a hell of a lot more dangerous. Could’ve hit some sort of internal organ. He must not have winced enough for her to think it was that bad, though.

Or, you know, the tests they ran on it before she showed up.

He took a deep breath – his side throbbed where she’d pressed it – and closed his eyes again. Hospitals made him nervous. Couldn’t say why. In this room off the emergency room, they didn’t smell as much of sick like the floors he was normally on did. Spent too much time on one of them to ever want to go back. But _couldn’t say why_ he didn’t like them. Hospitals – doctors – were in the practice of healing people, not making them sicker. Kind of like deputies. Like politicians should be if they ever got their head out of their ass and started thinking about someone other than them like they were elected to do, like they’d all lied about doing.

Best not to think about politics right now. He was in _enough_ pain without getting his blood literally boiling.

Hands at his side again – he must’ve missed the door, must’ve not heard what the ~~angel~~ ~~doctor~~ _intern_ ’d said, if she’d said anything at all – and it stung, stung, _stung_ enough that his eyes snapped open. “Cleaning before stitching?”

“Yep.” Reyes pressed another gauze against his side. “We don’t play with infections here.” The stinging stopped as she removed the gauze, only for it to flare up again as she began stitching his skin back together again. “Let me guess,” she started again, her eyes flicking up ever so briefly to meet his, “you got in a fight with some _bad men_.”

He gritted his teeth. “Yep.”

“From a drug deal of some sort.”

“Something like that.”

“You beat them up, too?”

“Tried. Hard to hit someone with your fists hard as they hit you with a knife.” Hollister winced as he rubbed at the scruff on his chin. It itched. “Guess you don’t have to worry about patching them up.”

“Would’ve patched them up just like I patch you up,” Reyes said with a sigh. “Given the option, I would’ve patched him up _first_ , if the situations were reversed.”

“Him stabbed and me just beat bloody?”

Reyes nodded with a noncommittal _mmhm_ noise.

“They give you the option?”

“No.” Reyes didn’t even blink. “Good thing this one isn’t deep. You would’ve been in a hell of a lot of trouble if it’d been just a little bit—”

“—further to the right?” Hollister asked, unable to keep himself from smiling.

Reyes looked up. “ _Left_ , actually.”

“Close enough.” He grunted. “Would’ve been the right decision, patching him up first, if the roles were reversed.” Hollister rotated his arm, wincing when he pulled at the gash in it. “He would’ve been hurt more.”

“Very macho of you.”

Something in her tone indicated disgust, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d think that she’d started pulling on the stitching a little harder. “I say something wrong, Dr. Reyes?”

“No. Nothing wrong at all.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing wrong.”

Reyes’s eyes flicked up again, brief. “You ever work retail, Deputy Hollister?”

His eyebrows raised. “Two summers during high school, three part time jobs over the two years waiting on being old enough to enroll as a deputy, lot more to take care of my mother. Why?”

“Then you’ll understand what I mean when I say _nothing is wrong_.”

Hollister nodded. “I ask you off the clock, you gonna tell me something’s wrong?”

“No, I’m going to ignore you unless you’re bleeding out in front of me.” Reyes glanced up again. “Don’t mistake small talk for actual interest, deputy.”

Another nod, an acknowledging grunt. “Let me guess – too many work hours, not enough breaks, ones you’ve got aren’t enough time to eat anything, running on not enough sleep and not enough caffeine, but you’ve got to stay awake long enough to get the job done and they won’t let you leave. Sometimes you get a protein bar in between patients, but that’s not really enough.”

“Hospital business.” Reyes’s lips quirked upward in something like a smile but not quite. “At least we get paid better than retail. Or _will_ when it’s not an internship.”

“You’d think doctor business would know how to doctor its doctors.”

“Doctor _business_ doesn’t actually give a shit about anybody.” Reyes looked up with that same quirk to her lips. “Businesses don’t give a shit, _people_ give a shit. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

Hollister chuckled. “Didn’t have to hear it from you. Know it from the bureaucratic asses who are so far removed in their ivory tower that they don’t know how to do leg work anymore but make laws like they do.” His eyes lifted. “It’s not unique to hospitals.”

“I did say _businesses_ , not just _doctor business_.” This time Reyes didn’t look up, just pulled a little bit to tighten his stitching. “Almost done here, and then you can be on your way.”

His brows raised again. “Arm don’t need fixing?”

Reyes took a deep breath. “Didn’t look like it to me, but I can stitch it up, too, if you’re worried about it.”

“Nah. I trust you.” He rotated his shoulder again, wincing a little bit. “Probably shouldn’t ask you out while you’re on the clock either, huh.”

That got her to look up, brows almost hitting her hairline. “Shouldn’t ask me while you’re high on pain meds, either.”

“Haven’t taken any pain meds.”

“Or while you’re high on adrenaline.”

Hollister chuckled. “That wore off a while ago. But thanks for the concern.”

Reyes pulled back on the thread, finished tying a little knot, pulled it all a little tighter, and then cut the thread. “There. Done.” She pushed her stool back, glanced over his arm once, and then nodded. “I can clean it up for you, if you want, but you don’t need more than that.”

“Nah,” Hollister said, shaking his head. “Go get back to saving lives. Job needs done more than babysitting my ass.” He rotated his arm again, winced. “Thanks for the stitching.”

“Don’t exert it for a few days, or you’ll end up back in here with the stitches pulled out.” Reyes’s eyes met his again, briefly. “No gun chases, no fist fights. I don’t want to see you complaining, got it?”

Hollister smiled. “Got it.” He pulled his shirt back on. “Means I can go now, right?”

“It does.”

“Good.” He started buttoning his shirt. “Got a couple of things I want to do, got to do them quick.” He grinned. “No gun chases or fights or anything like that. Just good solid—”

Reyes’s face steeled itself.

“I’m boring you.”

“You want to have this chat; I might as well be patching your arm up. You make a big show about me doing my job, let me do my job.”

“Fine. You got a job needs doing, go do the job.”

Reyes rolled her eyes. “Don’t need your permission, _deputy_.”

By the time Hollister looked back up from buttoning his shirt, the door was slamming shut behind her. He grinned, chuckled a little bit. Someone might’ve said they were bickering like an old married couple, but wouldn’t’ve been him. Seemed to be getting along well enough. And he liked her. That was easy enough. Complicated a bit with everything going on with Valeria, but they’d known that couldn’t last. Something happens like what just happened, and he had to distance himself or screw over his informant (in a less literal sense, of course). Besides, he didn’t think it’d be necessarily proper to do anything about this thing with Reyes, anyway. Be hard pressed to find anyone to tell him it’s _fine_. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted one of _his_ old customers to—

Well, there’d been Sheila. She’d been fun. _He_ could be fun.

Besides, ain’t no one ever said Deputy Bill Hollister was known for being proper.


	2. Chapter 2

He’d been in around nine o’clock and gotten out by ten.

He was back near around midnight, his bloody deputy uniform shirt thrown into a wash with his dirty, sweaty jeans, both replaced with something nicer – a cleaner pair of jeans (no slacks, nothing more than a working man’s jeans because they were the only thing that would hold up to the nitty gritty of his job) and a clean flannel shirt (without his not yet customary wool-lined denim jacket or white cowboy hat – he didn’t need anything shading his eyes, didn’t need anything making him any hotter than he already was). The shirt was tucked in, which on anyone else might’ve seemed a tad much, but always felt right to him and so shouldn’t seem much to anyone looking.

Oh, yeah, and he’d brought coffee.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to doze at all – he had – but his mind was working overtime the way it always did when he felt like he’d left something undone, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to relax until he did the thing needed doing. Which, in this case, meant going back to the hospital, even though he didn’t strictly need to, and talk to Paula Reyes again. With an offering. Because most of the time a customer comes back after to talk to you, it’s an uncomfortable and not good thing.

Except with Sheila. He hoped this was a Sheila case.

…he actually hoped this was _better_ than a Sheila case (better than a Valeria case, not that he worked with Reyes), but that’s another thing.

Fortunately – or unfortunately, as the case might be – he near about ran into Doctor Reyes as she was trying to leave, her keys jangling out of one of her pockets so that she didn’t quite see him until they were almost on each other. It was then that she froze, staring at him, and didn’t relax but didn’t quite tense either, which he took as a good sign.

“Deputy Hollister. You need something?”

“No, don’t need anything. You did a good job.” The slash in his left arm rubbed something fierce against the flannel, but he was getting good at not wincing every time it did that. “I, uh, thought I’d bring you some coffee.” He didn’t avoid her gaze, but he didn’t quite meet it either. “Got to be a mite better – and a mite _stronger_ – than anything they were giving you in there.”

Reyes stared at the cup in his hands – which, point in his favor, was still steaming hot, he could feel it against his skin. “I’m not going to take a cup of _anything_ from a strange white man who comes and talks to me around midnight in a mostly empty parking lot while I’m leaving work. Not going to take it from _any_ man. You understand?”

“Oh.” His eyes widened, and he stared at the cup in his hands. “Oh, that was _foolish_.”

“And from a deputy who should know better.” That quirk lifted the corner of her lips again. “Hope that you weren’t planning on asking me out, now that I’m off duty.”

“No, ma’am. Planning on waiting until the pain meds I didn’t take wear off first.”

He didn’t know her well enough to know if her expression was one of amusement or one of those forced _I need to be nice to my patient_ sort of things, but he could sense her relaxing, almost. That was enough for him.

Reyes took a little breath, her keys jingling as she switched them from one hand to the other, and she said, finally, without a hint of the tension she’d been wearing when she first noticed him, “You really want to get me some coffee, you’ll take me to that little diner on the other side of town – _Dee’s_.”

His eyes widened. “I can do that.”

“Good. You can usually find me there after my shift ends. Early enough that you mostly find drunks for the next few hours. I typically have some paperwork, some coffee, eggs—”

“Because they don’t feed you enough during your shift.”

“Maybe let the lady do her own talking, deputy.” But she didn’t sound annoyed with him. Good. “Usually there for a bit to wind down.”

“You going there now?”

That quirk at the corner of her lips again. “Maybe. Why don’t you go there yourself and find out?”

“We can’t just keep talking like this?”

Reyes shook her head and gave him an incredulous look. “Don’t really like talking to strange men in the dark in an empty parking lot after work. I believe I’ve mentioned this.”

“You have.”

She jingled her keys again. “Now, I’m gonna get in my car, and I’m gonna drive off, and you’re not going to follow me for the same reason I won’t be taking that cup of coffee from you, but if you happen to go somewhere I might be at, then I might let you buy me a cup of coffee. That sound good to you?”

“Sounds great.”

“Good.” Reyes shifted slowly away from him, and all at once, she seemed tense again. Wary. “See you soon, deputy.”

He watched her walk away, watched her get in her car – gave her a little wave as he stood stock still until she drove away, tried not to notice which way she turned but did anyway, just that little right off of the street out of the parking lot – watched until he couldn’t see her anymore. Then he took a sip of the black, black, _black_ coffee he’d made – still warm enough to burn his tongue from drinking it too soon – and went to his pick-up truck.

Maybe restlessness wasn’t as bad as his mama’d always made it out to be. Maybe it made him good at what needed him.

Not that Reyes needed any man. At least, he could hear her saying that plain as the moon and stars shining through the city lights above him. Certainly didn’t need a law man like him.

Sometimes it wasn’t about what you _needed_. It was about what you wanted.

Part of him said he needed her. Could only hope she _wanted_ him.

Dee’s was a good old style diner. The bell at the door dinged overhead as Hollister walked in, the floors were all black and white tile, and while the walls weren’t that bright fifties color of light blue or something like that, he figured all they needed was proper lighting to make them look like that. Might be they did something like that during normal people waking hours, but in the early morning darkness like this, problem was no one wanted anything like that (or the frou-frou hot pink, neon green, cotton candy blue skirts with the black poodles on them – which, to be frank, he never really wanted, but diners like that weren’t about him). His eyes scanned the red leather-backed booths first and found Reyes leaning back against one of them, her beautiful dark eyes closed to all around her, the hair in her rushed ponytail frazzled and unkempt. The yellow-brown glow of the diner’s overhead lights didn’t really do anyone any favors – Hollister himself would look sallow and sick under them – but somehow they lit Reyes’s features just right and made her look golden, metallic, _unreal_.

He wasn’t in the practice of having his breath taken from him by a gorgeous woman but he figured he could get used to this if she let him.

Reyes’s eyes opened just as he drew next to her booth, and that horrible light overhead pulled out the golden flecks in her hazel eyes as he scooted in across from her. “Funny seeing you here, deputy.” Her lips quirked into that little not quite smile that he was already coming to love.

“Yeah. Real funny.” Hollister leaned back against the leather-backed booth – cushion felt nice. Good nice. Good diner to be meeting at, if they started doing this regular. If _he_ started doing this regular. If she let him. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee?”

“Course.” Reyes nodded to the mug she already had which appeared to be half full. “After I finish this one.”

A waitress, yawning once a few feet away, approached the table, her blue eyes lined with deep bags, her stringy blonde hair pulled back into a bun nearly as messy as Reyes’s was. She ignored Hollister at first, turning entirely to Reyes. “He bothering you, sugar?”

Reyes took a deep breath, and her head tilted to one side as she looked across to Hollister. “Haven’t decided yet, but I’ll let you know if there’s a problem.”

“You do that.” The waitress – Di, as Hollister could now see on the plastic nametag tacked to her stained brown apron – turned to face him, took him in all at once, and nodded. He wasn’t sure if that was approval or not, but it was something. “You want anything?”

“Cup of coffee.” He looked across to Reyes. “You hungry? Want something to eat? You mentioned eggs.”

Reyes shook her head. “Nice try, deputy, but this isn’t a date.” She glanced to Di. “Unless _you’re_ buying.”

“Nope.”

That little quirk again, that tilt of her head, and maybe if she weren’t so tired she’d seem almost happy. Not that he was one to judge someone else’s happiness. “Cup of coffee. Hold the eggs. Pancakes?” She shook her head, waved her hand once. “No, _hash browns_. Maple syrup. Ketchup.”

“You’re gross, you know that, hun?” Di didn’t pencil their orders onto any reams of paper, just nodded to herself. “Be back with your orders in a minute.”

Hollister leaned forward as Di left, settling himself into the seat a little more comfortably. “Ketchup and syrup,” he repeated, that calm tone that withheld any disgust he might or might not have been feeling about his new friend’s food choices. “That a good combination?”

“Let you have a bite if you’re good.”

“I’ll be good, then.” Hollister smiled, that small, thin-lipped sort of thing, and his hands ached for something to hold, that cup that still hadn’t gotten to him yet. “More of an applesauce man, myself.”

Reyes’s brows rose. “You’re not Jewish, are you, deputy?”

“Nah.” His head tilted to one side. “And you’re thinking _latkes_ , not hash browns. Different things.” He placed his hands on the table, interlaced his fingers. “When I was a kid, Mama was real big on us eating fruit with breakfast. Only way she could get me to eat anything was applesauce. Teeth were sensitive. Didn’t like biting through slices of anything. Joe used to laugh at me.”

“Joe?”

“My brother.” He grew silent, then, as Di returned with his cup of coffee. Gave her a little nod of gratitude as he wrapped his hands around the steaming mug. “Thank you.”

“Welcome.” The blonde patted Reyes’s shoulder as she walked back to the counter. “Yours should be out in a few minutes. Takes a bit to cook this early. Stoners won’t get here for another couple hours.”

“I know.” She turned to the blonde. “Thanks, Di.”

“Course.”

Then Reyes turned back to him, watching as he took a sip of his coffee. “You were saying? About your brother?”

“Nothing.” The coffee burned his tongue. The cut in his arm rubbed painful against his flannel shirt. Should’ve left the gauze wrapped around it, but he’d wanted it to breathe a little bit. Might not’ve been the best decision. “Got tired of eating applesauce same way every morning, started mixing it with my hash browns. Been doing it that way ever since.” He set his mug back down on the table, passed it between his hands. “Your family do anything like that?”

“It’s too early to talk family, deputy.”

 _Got a name, you know_ , Hollister wanted to say, but he bit his tongue. Thing was, his name probably wasn’t any better. Not many people called him _Bill_ anymore, and he didn’t know that he’d respond to it well if he heard it. _Deputy_ was just as good as _Hollister_ , so there was no point in correcting her.

Reyes leaned back against the booth, glanced over to Di where she stood behind the main counter, and then sighed. Seemed to Hollister that his being here was making her uncomfortable, even though she’d clearly indicated for him to join her. That wasn’t what he’d wanted.

“It’s okay to sit and not talk, if that’s what you need,” he said, looking down at his mug as Reyes turned back toward him. “I don’t want to be interfering with your time.”

He waited to see the quirk at the edge of her lips, but there wasn’t one. The mug was still hot between his hands. “I can just finish this and head right on out.”

“You’re going to burn your tongue.” Reyes stared at him. “Di takes a special pleasure in giving coffee like that to people she doesn’t like just yet, and if you burn your _throat_ , we’ll have to go back to the hospital and _I’ll_ have to explain what was going on because you won’t be able to talk, and that’d be _worse_ than you just sitting here with me.” She sighed. “I spend all day there; I don’t want to go back during my free time.”

“I understand that.”

Hollister could hear what his mama would say in this situation – _you got yourself into this mess, cowboy; you’re gonna have to sit it out_ – but he took another sip of his coffee anyway. It wasn’t near as hot as she’d described, but it still felt like fire down his throat – he could feel it burning in his chest. No good trying to chug it all at once just to get out of an awkward situation.

“Look. Let’s start small, okay?” Reyes held her hand out over the table. “I’m Paula. Right now, I’m an intern at the hospital, and they give us a large enough stipend to pay for housing but not much else. I eat at Dee’s because it’s cheap and it’s _good_ for cheap and it gives me a place to sit where I don’t have to listen to people having sex through the very, _very_ thin walls of my cheap apartment.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s a Thursday morning, so most of them will be done by the time the stoners get here.” Then she looked back up at him. “You don’t have to entertain me, deputy. You just have to better than _that_. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Hollister looked at her hand and then took it with his own. It felt cold, but that was probably just because his coffee was that hot. “I’m Bill, but you can keep calling me _deputy_ all you want. I’ll answer to it better. I’m used to long hours on stakeouts, so it’s nice to have somewhere to sit with warm food, warm coffee, and a bathroom without having to worry about who on my team’s going to get shot.” His eyes moved toward the window, and he sighed. “Still think one of them’s going to get shot, but can’t do anything about it because _someone_ told me I couldn’t exert myself or I’d pull out my stitches.” Then he looked back over to her. “Still not sure about that one, because it’s the best stitching job I’ve seen since I’ve been made deputy.”

“Not your first time, then,” Paula said as she took her hand out from his and leaned back in the booth.

“Stopped counting in my first year.” He smiled. “Only person I’ve ever seen stitch better was my mama, and she was trying to save us from having to go to the doctor at all. Didn’t really trust them after Dad died.”

The words tasted more bitter than the coffee on his tongue, even though he didn’t say them that way. It was hard to get started again after.

“Glad you’ve gotten over that.”

It was a small encouragement, but it was enough.

“Didn’t say I did. Just learned there are some scrapes you can’t get yourself out of.” He rolled his flannel shirt back to expose his right elbow and showed her a long white scar etched circular into his skin. “Thought I’d done a good job on this one, but it got infected. Could’ve lost my arm if Harris hadn’t made me go see one of you. Figured after that I’d better let the experts take care of me.”

Paula’s eyes shifted from the thick scar on his elbow to the counter and then slowly took her watch off. Underneath where it once was she exposed an uneven patch of what he’d think to be a scar if it weren’t so smooth. “When I was thirteen, I burned the inside of my wrist trying to test the heat of a hair curler. I wasn’t even supposed to be using it – Mom said she’d beat us ‘til the cows came home if she caught any of us with it – so I hid it. Thought if I was going to be a good doctor, I’d start with doctoring me. Changed the bandage and cleaned it so much and I _still_ don’t know how it got infected.” She chuckled, pushing strands of hair out of her face that’d pulled loose from her ponytail. “Mom decided I’d punished myself enough that she didn’t have to do it for me.”

“Sounds like a good mom.”

“She was a great mom.”

 _Was?_ he wanted to ask, but she’d already told him once that it was too early to talk family. Besides, he knew how _he’d_ feel if she’d asked him about the _was_ with his mom and his brother. Or about how his dad died. Conversations he probably shouldn’t be having early morning in a diner.

And there was something _nice_ about the way she looked up at him, those hazel eyes not quite lit from inside, her lips turned upward in something that wasn’t the quirk and wasn’t quite a smile. He didn’t want to break that for the world.

He didn’t have to.

“Your hash browns,” Di said as she moved back to their table, placing the plate down in front of Paula along with a napkin with a fork and two little plastic dipping cups – one with ketchup and one with maple syrup. She turned back to Hollister as Paula leaned away from them, back up against the booth again. “You sure you don’t want anything to eat?”

Hollister smiled. “Hash browns. Applesauce. If that’s okay.”

“I’m only here to serve.” Di’s tone didn’t _sound_ very _service-y_ , but he wasn’t going to fault her that. Especially not since she was Paula’s friend. That’d be a strike against him. As she walked away, he determined that he was going to tip a lot. He’d already been planning on doing that, but if she was going to put up with them, she deserved more than whatever the owners were paying her.

Hollister leaned back against the booth and nodded towards Paula’s plate. “So. Ketchup and maple syrup. It really that good?”

“Here.” Paula stabbed the hash browns with her fork, dipped it in both the ketchup and maple syrup, and then held it out in the air in front of him. “Take a bite and see for yourself.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You sure?”

“I’m a doctor. I saw your medical charts. I’m not worried.” She continued to hold the fork out in front of him. “Unless you have some weird ideals of—”

Hollister leaned forward and took the bite. If she wasn’t worried, he wasn’t going to try and _make her_ worried. Then he leaned back in the booth. The ketchup was sharp and tangy, the hash browns salty, and the maple syrup not so sickeningly sweet as he thought it would be. It pulled something sweet out of the ketchup. They didn’t quite mash. Weren’t _bad_ either, though.

“What do you think?”

“Not bad.” He couldn’t stop himself from grinning. “Can I have another?”

“When your own get here. I’m not sharing more than that.” Paula scooted back and began to eat.

As Hollister watched, he noticed that she took turns dipping her bites in either ketchup or maple syrup but never mixed the two again. He frowned. “You don’t actually eat them together, do you?”

Paula looked up, meeting his eyes, and said with a straight face, “What sort of crazy do you think I am, deputy?” Then she smiled – that quirk at the edge of her lips lifting into something significantly more smug and amused with herself. Then she pointed at the empty area in front of him. “Certainly not as crazy as you and your applesauce.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with being crazy sometimes.”

She snorted. “Depends on the sometimes.”

But – of point – when his hash browns arrived, she stole a bite of his with the applesauce without even asking. “To make things even,” she said when he gave her a strange look, but he thought maybe it was just that little bit of crazy of his spreading. And when they were done eating, she stood, folding her jacked over her arm, and said, watching him carefully, “Pretty sure those pain meds of yours have worn off now, deputy.”

“Didn’t take any.”

“If you had.”

Hollister shrugged once. “Feel in less pain now than I did before.”

Then she nodded to her now empty mug of coffee. “And you still owe me a cup of coffee.”

“Well, then.” Hollister brushed his hands against his denim jeans. “I guess I’ll have to meet you here again tomorrow. Same time?”

Paula watched him curiously – it was an expression he was learning to know well and one he loved to see on her. “We’ll see.” Then she shifted the jacket in her hands and passed him by on the way to the door.

It was only after she left that he realized she’d left him with her tab. He couldn’t stop grinning as he left enough to pay for their meals twice over. If Reyes thought he’d do this every morning they were here—

Well, she’d be right.


End file.
